The Swedish Wikipedia's controversial two-millionth article
The Swedish Wikipedia hits two million articles
The Swedish Wikipedia hit two million articles this week. The Signpost was there in 2013 when the project hit one million. Both celebrations have been controversial because both the one-millionth article (Erysichton elaborata, an Australian species of butterfly) and the two-millionth article (Iro, a mountain in south Sudan) were created by Lsjbot, a bot created by Dr. Sverker Johansson (Lsj), a physicist at Dalarna University College and an administrator on the Swedish Wikipedia. A significant percentage of the articles on the Swedish Wikipedia, Cebuano Wikipedia, and Waray Wikipedia were created by the bot, which had 2.7 million articles to its credit as of last summer. Lsjbot's focus has included obscure species, such as birds and fungi, and geographical locations. The bot's work has prompted objections, especially from the German Wikipedia, that the articles are largely content-free and of little use. Proponents counter that these subjects are unlikely to receive the attention of human editors otherwise. Johansson commented on Wikipedia's articles in 2015 saying, "they're mainly written by young, white, male nerds and reflect male interests". For example, at time of writing, there do not appear to be articles on other Wikipedias about Erysichton elaborata or Mount Iro that were not created by Lsjbot. G
First bot-created article generated from Wikidata
Six Wikipedias now feature the first article created by a bot importing information from Wikidata. The article, List of paintings by Jacob van Ruisdael, was generated by ListeriaBot after an editor, Jane023, inserted Template:Wikidata list into newly created articles on each of the Wikipedias. ListeriaBot was created by Magnus Manske, who describes its use in a blog post. This approach has myriad potential uses, and promises to leverage Wikidata to make information in different language Wikipedias more consistent, current, and reliable. But it also has a few potential problems. ListeriaBot will automatically update the article but will also overwrite any changes made by human editors. Human editors, especially novice ones, may not be willing to go to the Wikidata and learn its workings in order to update a list on Wikipedia. Manske offers a common.js script that provides a popup allowing editors to update Wikidata from the Wikipedia article itself. Although this is an impressive tool for advanced editors, it is still not one likely to be employed by novice ones. G
The Orange Bar of Doom has finally met its doom
On September 10, without notice, the notification indicators at the top of every user's interface changed. The old Orange Bar of Doom was replaced with two new indicators, one for messages and one for alerts. (To the side is an image representation provided by Orange Suede Sofa). We will provide a follow-up next week with the results of our poll, including some selected comments. Users are currently giving the new feature mixed reviews in a Village Pump thread. Some users are reporting glitches, especially when using certain skins, and it is unclear when they might be fixed. T
Active editor numbers still on the rise
After several years of decline, the number of editors retaining a hundred or more live mainspace edits on the English Wikipedia was 3,458 in August. The number was up more than 11% on August 2014, and last month was the eighth month in a row to see an increase compared to the same month in the previous year (July topped the July 2013 figure as well and August is now above the August 2011 figure). This continues a trend discussed last month in the Signpost. G
Arbitrator to resign
On September 4, Euryalus announced that he would step down from the Arbitration Committee at the end of the year. He wrote, "It's been an entirely worthwhile experience, but it takes too much time away from what I enjoy a lot more, which is the writing of obscure articles on eighteenth century shipping and colonial figures. I have Wikipedia hours for either Arbcom or articles - after a year doing Arbcom I'd like to get back to the topics I left behind." Euraylus was elected in 2014 to a two-year term with 62.76% support. Early resignations from the Committee are not uncommon. G
New templates
Because of the recent Orangemoody case, a new series of paid-editing warning templates have been created by Fuhghettaboutit. {{Uw-paid1}}, {{Uw-paid2}}, {{Uw-paid3}}, and {{Uw-paid4}} have not been added to Twinkle yet and a discussion for their addition is ongoing on the Twinkle project's talk page. T
Discuss this story
Really?
Blah blah disclaimer that I was part of the team that worked on this. Legoktm (talk) 05:26, 11 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying Beware of the Leopard."
— Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Quoted by Ningauble (talk) of Wikiquote 14:32, 15 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It seems that Dr. Sverker Johansson commented on Wikipedia's articles in 2014, rather than 2015 as indicated. --Roisterer (talk) 06:20, 15 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The Swedish Wikipedia hits one million articles in a rather embarrassing way...
"For example, at time of writing, there do not appear to be articles on other Wikipedias about Erysichton elaborata or Mount Iro that were not created by Lsjbot."
That may be because the combination Erysichton elaborata does not and has never existed. The Swedish Wikipedia claims that sv:Erysichton elaborata is the same as Jameela palmyra tasmanicus, and that it got its name from Thomas Pennington Lucas in 1900. In reality, Lucas described Lycaena elaborata, which is indeed the same as Jameela palmyra tasmanicus, or as Erysichton palmyra tasmanicus. It has never been known as Erysichton elaborata or Erysichton palmyra elaborata, until Wikipedia invented it. It has since been added to some "reliable" online resources, like [1] and [2]. The source for the bot seems to be something like this page, which shows that "Elaborata" was a species name in what is known as the "Erysichton" genus. Right, but never at the same time... This is made clear by the species specific page at the same site, [3]. The other source in the first version of the Swedish article, the "Catalogue of life", doesn't list the Erysichton elaborata either[4], it does have the Erysichton palmyra tasmanicus.
To get that as your millionth article is embarrassing, to still have it at that title when you have doubled in size is even worse. I complained about errors on the main page in the DYK section, but this gaffe easily beats those. Perhaps someone fluent in Swedish can contact the sv-wiki, point them to this, and suggest moving the page? And checking the other bot creations for similar inventions (good luck with that!) Fram (talk) 12:39, 15 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Animalparty: @Graham Beards: @Maky: Hello! I was hoping some editors with scientific backgrounds might join the discussion and add their insight. Gamaliel (talk) 16:37, 15 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Hansmuller: Gamaliel (talk) 16:43, 15 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]